Every person in this world is governed from within by two forces: egoism and altruism. The egoistic force pulls everything inside a person, making him the center of the universe, while the altruistic force enables him to give to the outside, to other people.

However, even though this force is called altruistic, it’s clear that with the boundaries of this world, it, too, can only act egoistically. Thus, even if I give to another person, it is not a selfless act; I still expect to receive something in return. I don’t have any possibility of giving without compensation being the motivation or “fuel” for my act.

This is how man is built: he’s a machine that can only work on egoistic fuel, the benefit he expects to receive. I cannot work as an eternal engine, Perpetuum Mobile, without receiving any energy and satisfaction from outside. I have to receive energy from outside because I’m not the sun that shines with its own light.

Only the Creator possesses the true quality of bestowal since this is His nature. In order for creation to be able to bestow selflessly, it has to receive fuel from the Creator in the form of the sensation of the Creator’s greatness. This is the only opportunity to attain bestowal – to use the Creator as the source of the driving energy.

This constitutes the whole problem of the communists, socialists, kibbutzniks, and altruists of all kinds who desire to correct the world: they don’t understand that man does not have the energy to bestow. He does not have the fuel to implement this idea. Not one person will object to the fact that life will be better if everyone becomes altruists. But the problem is, no one knows how to make this happen; no one besides Kabbalists, that is, because they have access to the Source of energy!

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A Question I received: What’s the connection between the merging of Malchut with Bina and our uniting through The Book of Zohar?

My answer: If we want to unite with each other, we have to believe that the force of Bina, the Creator, HaVaYaH, dwells among us. Everything is revealed among the souls. This is why our unification above everyone’s individual egoism is the power of unification between Malchut and Bina.

Bina is the Creator, the Upper Mother (Ima Ilaa), the Upper Force that dwells among us. Therefore we cannot unite together on our own. We will only discover emptiness, darkness among us, and see unity as unfeasible.

However, if we acknowledge the existence of Bina, the Upper Light or the Creator among us, we only have to reveal Him, to call for Him to unite us. Accordingly, the Creator can unite us only if we desire to become like Him – the force that dwells and fills all the empty spaces among us.

For us to reveal the Creator, He created us in such a way that we “float” in Him like bread crumbs in a broth. If I come out of myself (of egoism) and desire to connect to Him, to the attribute of bestowal, it signifies that Malchut begins to connect to Bina.

Once I’m ready to be outside of myself, Bina, the Creator or the force of the Light that Reforms, acts upon me, enabling me to do it. Then I can truly come out of myself and start connecting with the others. Yet by doing so, I don’t connect with them directly (it’s impossible), but do so through the Light, Bina.

How? I connect to Bina, and then the power of Bina “comes back” to me. It means that Malchut begins to receive into itself the property of Bina and can then work with the intention for the sake of bestowal. To the extent that Malchut has such a power, it starts feeling the powers of the others.

My coming into Bina and receiving the property of bestowal from it is called “repentance from fear.” Coming out of myself with my corrected Malchut and beginning to work with the others is called “repentance from love.”

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In the article, “The Nation,” Baal HaSulam writes that a person differs from an animal in that animals completely rely on nature. Animals cannot adapt nature to themselves. In contrast, human beings are endowed with the power of thought, and without having to rely on nature, can, for example, instead of waiting for a chicken to hatch eggs, invent an incubator to perform the job of hatching eggs.

In a similar fashion, a person always strives to better his state, without placing himself under the blows of nature. A person attempts to find the most comfortable means of achieving his goals using the least effort to get results as quickly as possible and with the least suffering.

For people aspiring for the goal of spirituality, the science of Kabbalah serves as an “incubator” helping us speed up our spiritual development without waiting for it to occur in a severe natural way, which is both lengthy and painful. The goal of our spiritual development is to give rise to a sensation of an independent (free) equivalence to the Creator. The spiritual “incubator” for people needs to be multilayered, so that each person can find his place in it and feel as though he is in the arms of his caring mother. Then he will receive beneficial “nourishment,” which will gradually develop and raise him.

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Kabbalists who revealed the Creator, wrote books about this, starting from Adam, the first person to attain the Creator, through Baal HaSulam. There are many Kabbalistic books mentioned in The Book of Zohar, which we aren’t familiar with. Apparently, these books have been lost. All the books written by sages from the nation of Israel up to HaShla HaKadosh (17th Century) were written from spiritual attainment.

Later, as a result of the descent of the level of the generations from the 17th Century on, not all authors of books on Kabbalah were in spiritual attainment. For this reason, a question arises regarding the authenticity of some books. We have at our disposal hundreds of books by authentic Kabbalists who wrote them while they were in our world and simultaneously had the perception of the spiritual world, a connection with the Creator. Hence, they were able to transmit their attainments to us in the form of texts, so that we, in turn, would obtain contact with what they attained.

However, The Book of Zohar is the only authentic Kabbalistic book about which it is written that through it we will come out of exile and rise to the level of those Kabbalists – the authors of these books. Indeed, The Book of Zohar truly has a special Light. The fact that there are other books, through which we can acquire a greater impression or understanding, is irrelevant when actually attaining the level of connection with the Creator.

There are many Kabbalistic texts, such as: “The Tree of Life” by the ARI, the Tanakh, the Gemara, and the Mishna, which are written in a rational, logical language that we understand. In contrast, when we read The Book of Zohar, we don’t understand what is written. It carries us into various directions. However, the special connection that it creates between our souls, between us who are beginning this path, and the source of Light that is able to correct us – is not present in any other book.

Therefore, of all the books, only about The Book of Zohar is it written that due to it we can come out of exile, to deliverance, and reveal the Creator. Other Kabbalistic sources also contain a connection, since the Kabbalists writing them possessed spiritual attainment. Their connection is expressed in their compositions. Nonetheless, only The Book of Zohar, can help us.

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A question I received: How can we connect the articles from the book of Shamati, which we are studying during the preparation to the lesson on The Zohar to The Book of Zohar itself?

My Answer: Everything we study in the science of Kabbalah is meant to keep us in constant connection with the Creator. In order to be connected to the Creator, to hold onto Him, to know how to properly and purposefully work out all of our states and situations, and to remember that they are sent to us by the Creator, we need the Light that Reforms. This Light needs to constantly illuminate for us that everything comes from the Creator and that it is given to us in order to advance. I evoke this Light again and again, repeating this cycle.

Importantly, The Book of Zohar connects me to the source of the Light. The Zohar is protection, it is our life buoy.
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Our entire work is carried out by the Creator, who fills the space between us. So you can imagine how fruitless all of humanity’s attempts to unite on its own, are.

Today humanity’s global problems are revealed, and we find ourselves tied together. We thereby witness the revelation of the Upper system, the connection among us. We try to reach some agreements, establish certain connections on this level,  but to no avail. Reaching compromises was possible until the global system became revealed. Today it no longer works.

That is why we have to reveal Who fills the space among us. Without this “middleman” – the Creator – nobody will manage to establish a connection with the others. Hence we experience the crisis in family relationships, relationships with children, relatives, and virtually everybody. And these problems will only intensify.

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A question I received: What is so special in one’s effort? What does it change in a person?

My Answer: What counts is not the effort within our desires, but rather the effort in our aspiring to clarify the difference between us and the Light, the creature and the Creator. That is, our effort is directed only toward the point within the creature where the difference between “existence” (Yesh Mi Yesh) and “existence from absence” (Yesh Mi Ain) is revealed.

We are constantly clarifying the gap that initially appeared between the Creator and the creature. That is why our exertion is directed only toward the clarification of who He is and who am I?

Such is the inner essence of this process. However, for us, it manifests as more tangible things, such as receiving the Light, ascending the degrees, or a new sensation in a more external form of our desire. Yet within us, only this point of qualitative difference between the Creator and the creature – the only act of Creation performed by the Creator – is at work. This is the supreme secret of how existence (Yesh) gave rise to existence from absence (Yesh Mi Ain).

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A question I received: If the Creator is the quality of bestowal, how can we bring delight to a quality? Does He really need anything from me?

My Answer: The Creator needs you to enjoy. The host wishes only one thing: for the guest to enjoy. However, He places a condition before you; you can enjoy only when you become like Him.

After all, we don’t want a child to receive pleasure only on his tiny level. We want him to continue growing, to become more mature and smarter. In order to help him develop, we surround him with toys that cause him to advance, rather than to just bring him pleasure. We seek an additional benefit in the activities for children.

The Creator treats us in much the same manner. He does not want us to remain as little animals. At the level of receiving for ourselves, we merely feel a brief life, and even over the course of this life we are never really able to enjoy.

However, if we enjoy while fulfilling the Creator, it does not vanish. We continuously feel even the most minor pleasure that we give Him in His desires to which we connect ourselves.

Why is it that all the pleasures that we feel in our life vanish? We want them to stay. Why should they fade? It is as though we consent to this, but why?

The spiritual world is called eternal. If you feel pleasure there once, it remains and fills you all the time. This is because the pleasure does not annul the desire, since the pleasure exists in one place while the desire exists in another. Therefore, you do not face any problem, you simply add more and more all the time. By this, there is an ascent by the spiritual degrees.

Meanwhile, in this world, everything occurs in one plane, where you move from one loss to another, until life ends, and that’s it.

Let’s hope that we will understand the unique opportunity that is contained in the science of Kabbalah – a science on how to receive infinite and eternal pleasure, and that we will realize it.

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The Zohar, Chapter “BeHukotai (In My Statues),” Item 5: Balak was wise. In his deeds he was the greatest of the wizards, greater than Balaam. I learned that everything that one wishes for in this world in the work of the Creator, he should awaken with an act below. This is so because with the act below, the act above is awakened….

It appears as though we depend on the desire from Above, for the Light to awaken us. However, when we begin to work below, we bring the awakening from Above.

Concerning the “awakening from below” and “awakening from Above,” it is written, “I am the first and I am the last.” This means that all is done by the Creator. It’s obvious that everything begins with the Creator; however, it is necessary for us to become involved in the process. At the beginning of one’s spiritual work and at the very end, a person receives help from Above, but everything else depends on him.

This is exactly the place where we usually become lost. When a person is at the lowest point of his fall, he is unable to climb out of it by himself, about this it is written, “A prisoner cannot liberate himself from the prison.” But if he is thrown the end of a life-line, then the rest depends on him (he has to grab it himself). He is accountable as to whether or not he has used the opportunity correctly.

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A question I received: By studying The Book of Zohar, will I learn how to obtain a connection with global nature?

My Answer: No, you will not learn anything. However, you will rouse a certain force onto yourself, and this force will influence you, change you, and connect all the different qualities in you to equivalence to nature. To the extent that you become an integral part of nature, make yourself similar to it, and unite with it, you will also understand everything.

Understanding comes after everything, as a result of all the changes and unifications that you achieve. However, by merely reading The Book of Zohar, you will not understand anything. You need to read The Zohar with the intention for it to make you an integral part of nature, to make you in oneness with all of reality.

To the extent that you unite with it, you will begin to feel that you are part of one whole, and from this sensation you will already begin to understand. This is called attainment, the last stage, which you achieve as a result of the unification. This unification with nature is called “adhesion with the Creator.”

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